Tim Fernholz reports on HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan's plan to curb the foreclosure crisis and wonders if the appointment signals a change from housing failures past:
[A]ll of those prescriptions revolve around the crisis part of the equation: What about the opportunity for a new agenda under a Democratic administration? Housing policy has been stagnant for years, underfunded on the federal level and in need of new framing, especially linkages with transportation, energy, and education policy.
Donovan had sharp criticisms for HUD under the previous administration, observing that the department had "in no way" been a leader on sustainable-housing issues and calling their relationship with Congress "disturbing." Asked about working with state and local stakeholders, the new secretary observed, "The first thing we can do is do no harm. Already that would be an advance from the current state of where HUD is in terms of quote-unquote helping nonprofits and other developers."
And Sarah Posner notes that civil-liberties groups have lost their teeth:
It appears that some of the justifiably proud guardians of the Constitution are still trying to find their footing in the Obama era. For eight long years, they stood their ground against the excesses of the Bush administration. They opposed the dominionist expeditions of the religious right into the halls of power and the halls of justice for even longer. Obama, they felt safe in concluding, was a fellow traveler and a comrade in arms for beating back the dangerous intertwining of government and religion. ...
Yet since Obama's election, the coalition's rhetoric is more muted. Rather than directly take aim at the government's faith-based institution, CARD members are tinkering with the margins.
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--The Editors
